The Online Course in Science Journalism Team

Waleed Al-Shobakky is a freelance science writer. His articles have appeared, in Arabic and English, in regional and international publications, including AlJazeera.net, Assafir newspaper, SciDev.net, and ScienceBusiness.net. On the non-writing side, Waleed is a founding member of the Arab Association for Science Journalists. Waleed's work on the Online Course aimed to make the Arabic translation more accessible ─ that is, more readable, relevant, and accurate ─ to Arab journalists. For rants and raves: w@shobakky.co.cc. Waleed is Egyptian, but based in Doha, Qatar.
Natasha Bolognesi is a health writer, specialising in HIV/AIDS. She is based in Stellenbosch, South Africa, where she studied for the M.Phil Journalism degree at Stellenbosch University. She writes for local and international publications including SciDev.Net, Nature Medicine and Nature News. Contact details: tasha@unisto.co.za
Catarina Chagas is a science journalist based at the Museum of Life, the science museum connected to the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation – a public health institution in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She is part of the team of the museum’s Nucleus of Studies in Science Communication, which develops materials, events and research in this area. She also works, as a freelance writer, for SciDev.Net, and is a mastered candidate at the Oswaldo Cruz Institution, where she develops a research on science communication for children.
Emily Chung works full-time as the Ottawa-based regional journalist for CBCNews.ca, the online news service of Canada's national public broadcaster. She is also a regular contributor to YES Mag, a science magazine for kids based in Victoria, B.C., in which she writes a chemistry column. She has written for a variety of newspapers and magazines and has won both national and international science writing awards. She holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of British Columbia.
Julie Clayton is a UK-based freelance science journalist, editor and workshop trainer. She specialises in biomedical science, particularly immunology and infectious diseases including HIV, malaria and bird flu. She has written news and features for various print and online publications, including Christian Aid, Lancet Infectious Diseases, Nature, Nature Medicine, New Scientist, Science magazine, and the Science and Development Network. Since 2003 Julie has organised international science journalism training workshops in Africa and Asia, as well as mentor African journalists on the mentoring programme of the World Federation of Science Journalists (SjCOOP). She is also Director of the World Conference of Science Journalists, due to take place in London in June, 2009.
Augustin Denis is a graduate in computer sciences. He is interested in web development and especially in what the internet can do for communication. Passionate about travel and Asian cultures, he lived abroad for a few years before working for the World Federation of Science Journalists. He is now in charge of technology and anything related to the web at the WFSJ.
Nadia El-Awady is the president of the Arab Science Journalists Association and the Middle East regional coordinator of the World Federation of Science Journalists' (WFSJ) mentoring programme for science journalists in Africa and the Middle East (SjCOOP). Nadia has worked for eight years both as a full time science journalist and editor with IslamOnline.net and as a freelance science journalist with several international publications. She is also the treasurer and a board member of the WFSJ. Nadia is based in Cairo, Egypt and has a B.Sc. in medicine from Cairo University and an M.A. in journalism and mass communication from the American University in Cairo.
Armand Faye has 27 years of experience as a science journalist, communicator and consultant. This includes working as a science communicator officer for the Senegalese Minister of Scientific and Technical Research (MRST), as science reporter for French-and Wolof-speaking radio and TV science programmes at the ex-Senegalese Radio-Television Office (ORTS), for the monthly science pages of the national daily newspaper 'Le Soleil', and as Editor-in-Chief of MRST's monthly science journals "Aujourd'hui-la-Science" and "Actualité Scientifique". He is one of the founder members and leaders of the Senegalese Information and Communication Professionals Coorporation (SYNPICS). Armand has also contributed as Editor-in-Chief to the quarterly newsletter of the of the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF/WECARD), and is a mentor for the mentoring programme of the World Federation of Science Journalists (SjCOOP), and tutor for the Online Course in Science Journalism.
Jean-Marc Fleury is the Executive Director of the World Federation of Science Journalists, based in Gatineau (Québec), Canada. He also holds the Bell Globemedia Chair in Science Journalism at Laval University, Québec City. He was previously Director of Communications at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Ottawa (Canada). He worked as a science journalist at Le Soleil newspaper in Québec City and the monthly magazine Québec Science. He has won several prizes for his articles. His degree is in Physics Engineering.
Lisbeth Fog studied journalism in Colombia, at the Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano, and then got her MSc in Science Journalism, at Boston University, United States, as a Fulbright scholar. She has been a science writer of books, written press, radio, television and web pages. Also, since late 1990s, she became a science journalism teacher, and has organized several science journalism workshops nationally and internationally. Fog was President of the Colombian Association of Science Journalism (ACPC) (1998 – 2004), director of the Colombian Science and Technology News Wire Service, NOTICyT (2002-2004), and press officer of the Colombian Institute for the Development of Science and Technology, Colciencias. In the international scenery, she has been member of the Scientific Committee of the Public Communication of Science and Technology Network (PCST), the Program Committee of the World Federation of Science Journalists (WFSJ), and is part of the www.scidev.net Regional advisory panel. She has also been member of the jury of several science and environmental journalism prizes. In 2002, while she was president, the ACPC won the National Prize of Science Excellence, in the category of popularizing science, given by the Colombian Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2006 she received the Science Journalism Prize, for a collective work at SEMANA magazine. Currently, Fog is correspondent of www.scidev.net , columnist at El Espectador, and professor at Universidad Externado de Colombia.
Jia, Hepeng is the founder and editor-in-chief of Science News Bi-weekly, China’s first news magazine targeting science community. Since June 2005, he has been working as SciDev.Net's regional coordinator for China and is responsible for the Chinese version China Gateway of SciDev.Net. He also writes for the Science magazine and UK magazine Chemistry World. In April 2007, Jia was elected as the executive board member of the World Federation of Science Journalists at the fifth World Conference of Science Journalists in Melbourne for his continued efforts to promote science journalism in China and in Asia. He edits the translation of the seventh chapter of this course – of which he is the original co-author – as well as adapts it.
Luo Hui is a senior science reporter at Science & Technology Daily in China as well as the newspaper’s deputy head for news centre. She is one of the founding members of China Science Reporting Network. She edits the translation of the first chapter of this course as well as adapts it.
Li Hujun is a senior science reporter at Caijing Magazine. He mainly reports science, public health and environment. With a master degree in engineering, Li used to be a Knight Fellow at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Li is one of the founding members of China Science Reporting Network and Climate Change Journalists’ Club. He edits the translation of the sixth chapter of this course as well as adapts it.
Killugudi S Jayaraman is the India correspondent for Nature. Until 1997 he was with the Press Trust of India news agency, first as science reporter and later as science editor. He is one of the founders of the Indian Science Writers' Association. Jayaraman lives in Bangalore, India.
Olfa Labassi is the Project Manager for the World Federation of Science journalists since December 2006. She was in charge of the administrative matters related to the online courses as well as the coordination and approval of the courses adaptation from English to French and Arabic. She holds a bachelor degree in computer science and management and a masters degree in Project management.
Lan Lin is the producer of Fantastic Science at Beijing TV Station. As a senior science TV worker, he has been a board member of China Association for Science Film and TV and Beijing Association of S&T Journalists. He has been struggling hard to improve the public recognition of science TV programmes. The Fantastic Science he is responsible for has been one of the leading science TV programmes in China. He edits the translation of the eighth chapter of this course as well as adapts it.
Jan Lublinski is a science journalist, trainer and consultant based in Bonn, Germany. He is one of the two co-editors of the Online Course in Science Journalism, and he is in charge of the internal evaluation of the mentoring programme run by the World Federation of Science Journalists (SjCOOP). As a journalist he reports for German Public Radio and GEO magazine. He also trains journalists from all over the world at "Deutsche Welle".
Patrick M. Nkono Luganda has over 15 years of experience as a science Journalist based in Uganda, specialising in climate science and biotechnology. He is editor-in-chief of the Farmers Voice Newspaper, chairman of the Network of Climate Journalists in the Greater Horn of Africa (NECJOGHA), lead media Consultant of the IGAD Climate Prediction and Application Centre (ICPAC), Nairobi, patron of the Uganda Science Journalists' Association (USJA). He also organises media training as CEO of the Farmers Media Link Centre, and director of Uganda Media for Health (UM4H). One of the projects he has initiated is the Village Communication and Learning Centres (VCLCs) Initiative - a rural development communication concept using the media as a pathway to transform rural livelihoods. Patrick was awarded the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation A.H. Boerma global award for exceptional contribution to agricultural journalism 1998/1999. He is also involved in the WFSJ science journalism mentoring programme.
Luisa Massarani is a Brazilian science journalist. Her background is in Communication, with a master in Science Information and a PhD in Biochemistry. She is the Latin American coordinator of SciDev.Net (www.scidev.net), a gateway based in London dedicated to providing reliable and authoritative information about science and technology for the developing world. She is also the head of Studies on Science Communication at the Museum of Life (www.museudavida.fiocruz.br), a hands on science museum in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). Furthermore, she coordinates the Ibero American Network for Monitoring and Training in Science Jornalism, joining key organizations from 10 countries. She has been working in science communication since 1987 and conjugates both practical and research activities, as well as providing training courses for science journalists in Latin America.
Gervais Mbarga has many years of expertise in training science journalists in a masters programme at the University of Yaounde. Before becoming a professor he was Editor-in-Chief of Cameroonian public television (CRTV). He has written a number of publications on science communication and on the sociology of science. He is the President of Cameroon's Association of Science Journalists and Communicators (SciLife), and a regional coordinator in the mentoring programme of the World Federation of Science Journalists (SjCOOP).
Isaac Njifakue is a graduate from the International School of Journalism, Yaoundé University in Cameroun, and has also studied in Canada, the USA and France. He has worked as a journalist since 1981, for both radio and TV in Cameroon. He has also built up a consulting company. He was the first Coordinator of the late Network of African Science Journalists, which preceded the mentoring programme of the World Federation of Science Journalists, for which he serves as mentor for Francophone mentees. He contributes to the Online Course as a translator (English to French).
Gilles Provost has been a full time science reporter for the French-speaking national TV network in Canada for the last 23 years. Before that, he was half-time science reporter for the Montreal daily newspaper Le Devoir for 15 years. He has been president or member of the board of the Quebec Association of Science Communicators for 12 years. He is in charge of the French translation of the Online Course in Science Journalism.
Mélanie Robitaille is a freelance science journalist based in Québec City, in the province of Québec. She works in French for magazines and radio. After winning the science writing prize "Bourse Fernand-Seguin" in Québec, this microbiologist definitly decided to be a science writer, specialized in health and environment. She is passionate about Latin America from where she reported many times. She fluently communicates in spanish and english. She is the editor of Québec's Science Writers Association Journal after being part of its board for a few years.
Magdy A.M. Said was born in Cairo 1961, got a Bachelor of Medicine in 1986, and Diploma in Anthropology from Cairo University. He published his first article in 1987, and the first of his three books in 1989. He started his career as a science journalist with "Al-Ateba'a", the Magazine of the Egyptian Medical Syndicate in 1992. Later he worked in different fields: environment, development, social research and micro-credit, before returning to journalism, as well as his first career, medicine. Magdy Said is a board and founding member of the Arab Science Journalists Association (ASJA). Currently he works as an editor and writer for IslamOnline.Net. He contributes to the Online Course as a translator (English to Arabic).
Carolyn Robinson began her journalism career with CNN in Atlanta, where she produced and reported internationally for its weekend medical news program for several years. Carolyn has worked extensively in Asia, as senior producer at a Chinese CNN affiliate in Hong Kong and also in East Timor, where she was the head of the local television station established by the United Nations. She has freelanced internationally as a producer, reporter and camerawoman for CNN, Al-Jazeera English, Reuters, APTN, AP Radio, NPR, The Christian Science Monitor and the Far Eastern Economic Review, and has received several journalism awards for her work. Robinson trained Arab journalists as a Knight International Press Fellow based in Lebanon, organizing workshops and in-house mentoring programs throughout the Middle East, and also as a mentor for the World Federation of Science Journalists, coaching Arab TV science, health and environment reporters. She is now based in Amman, Jordan as executive producer for "Arab House," a regional television program on social issues produced by the International Center for Journalists.
Horacio Salazar (Monterrey, México, 1957) is the Trends editor of Milenio Diario, a newspaper in México. He's written hundreds of articles and columns about science for this and other papers and magazine in México. Random House republished in México, in 2006, his book on the history of science, Oedipus' Navel. As the argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, he's more proud of the books he's read than of the ones he's written. He's married and has a seven years old kid, four dogs and a library approaching the 20k mark.
Christina Scott edits the African news for the Science and Development Network website (SciDev.net) and works as a science journalist covering everything from the birth of the universe to the death of dinosaurs, in Cape Town, South Africa. She used to run the radio and television science news for the South African Broadcasting Corporation. She now focuses more on editing and writing books, but her funny accent is still heard on radio. She mentors and tutors through the mentoring programme of the World Federation of Science Journalists (SjCOOP).
Šárka Speváková is a freelance science writer, now mainly working for Herafilm, an independent production company, which is creating the science magazine PORT and health documentaries for Czech TV. She is in charge of the development strategy of the magazine and for the contents of individual episodes. She worked as the editor of the Science and technology Supplement of the Economic Daily and for the educational programs of TV Nova. She has held many other positions either in printed or electronic media which were always connected with communicating science and technology. She has a Masters degree from the Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague.
Richard Stone is Asia News Editor of Science, the international weekly magazine. Richard has reported from some of the most forbidding and challenging corners of the world, from Antarctica to North Korea and Iran. He spent the 2004-2005 academic year as a Fulbright scholar in Kazakhstan and now lives in Bejing. In addition to his work for Science, Stone has written for National Geographic, Discover, and Smithsonian magazines and is the author of the 2001 book, 'Mammoth: The Resurrection of an Ice Age Giant.'
Fang Xuanchang is the science editor at China News Weekly. After graduating from environmental chemistry department at Jilin University, he used to work as an environmental monitoring engineer. Since 1999, he works for series of Chinese media. He is one of the founding members of China Science Reporting Network. He edits the translation of the fourth chapter of this course as well as adapts it.
You Xuequing is a senior science reporter at Science & Technology Daily in China She is one of the founding members of China Science Reporting Network and Climate Change Journalists’ Club. She edits the translation of the fifth chapter of this course as well as adapts it.
Zhao Yan is the deputy editor-in-chief of Science Times, which invests in Science News Bi-weekly. He is also the president of the Science News Bi-weekly. He graduated from the Shenyang Institute of Applied Ecology under Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1997. Between 2005 and 2006, he was the Knight Fellow at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). He edits the translation of the second chapter of this course as well as adapts it.
Gong Yidong works for China Feature under the official Xinhua Agency and he is also the China news editor for Science and Development Network (SciDev.Net). He mainly reports science, public health and environment in English. His stories have been published in Science, SciDev.Net, South China Morning Post, and China Daily. He edits the translation of the third chapter of this course as well as adapts it.